Assholes Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Aaron J. James

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Jacket design by Emily Mahon

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  James, Aaron (Aaron J.)

  Assholes : a theory / Aaron James.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Egoism. 2. Conduct of life. I. Title.

  BJ1474.J36 2012

  179—dc23 2012005659

  eISBN: 978-0-385-53568-7

  v3.1

  To my parents

  If an individual takes a lenient view of the moral law, he may well have a high opinion of himself and be conceited, because he judges himself by a false standard.

  — IMMANUEL KANT, Lectures on Ethics

  Émile, in considering his rank in the human species and seeing himself so happily placed there, will be tempted to … attribute his happiness to his own merit.… This is the error most to be feared, because it is the most difficult to destroy.

  —JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Émile

  Do you know who I am?

  —A quintessential asshole question

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1: A Theory

  2: Naming Names

  3: Newer Asshole Styles

  4: Gender, Nature, Blame

  5: Asshole Management

  6: Asshole Capitalism

  7: Accepting the Given

  Letter to an Asshole

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix: A Game Theory Model of Asshole Capitalism

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  [1] A THEORY

  In the summer of 2010, Stanley McChrystal, U.S. army general and Afghan war commander, reportedly trashed the U.S. civilian military leadership, in effect forcing President Barack Obama to ask him to resign. The display of disrespect was striking, but more telling were the details about McChrystal’s handling of smaller matters. According to one story, McChrystal was once apprised by his chief of staff that he was obliged to attend a dinner in Paris with NATO allies—if not to shore up flagging support for the war, then simply because, as the chief of staff put it, “the dinner comes with the position, sir.” McChrystal held up his middle finger, retorting, “Does this come with the position?”1

  For brazen disregard, General McChrystal pales in comparison to another general, Douglas MacArthur. During the Korean War, MacArthur was a law unto himself, in matters both big and small. He quarreled defiantly in public with President Truman, agitating for nuclear war. In their eventual confrontation at Wake Island, MacArthur went so far as to arrive first and then order the president’s approaching plane into a holding pattern. MacArthur’s commander in chief would thus arrive on the landing strip appearing to be MacArthur’s supplicant.

  In explaining why he subsequently relieved MacArthur of his command, Truman said, “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals.”2 Truman was arguably pulling his punches. He could easily have called MacArthur an asshole.

  That would not be an exotic charge: assholes abound in history and public life. Aside from runaway generals, we might think of such contemporary figures as former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, or Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We might think of the self-important developer-entertainer Donald Trump, the harsh pop music critic Simon Cowell, or the narcissist actor Mel Gibson.3 Assholes are found daily on cable news, where hosts repeatedly interrupt their guests, and also on talk radio, where airtime is given to commentators who thrive on falsehood and invective. Even as this demonstrably degrades the public debate so vital for a healthy democratic society, overheated commentators get rich and famous, while clearly having a really great time.

  All of this poses a larger philosophical question: What is it for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Assholes can be found not simply in history and high public office but almost anywhere—at work; in our chosen club, sport, school, religious group, or circle of friends; and even, for the truly unlucky, in the home or immediate family. Try as we might to avoid them, we often simply have to manage encounters that come, for most of us, with great difficulty and personal strain. The asshole is not just another annoying person but a deeply bothersome person—bothersome enough to trigger feelings of powerlessness, fear, or rage. To make matters worse, we may be unable to understand why exactly someone should be so disturbing. We may feel certain only that “asshole” is a suitably unsavory name for this particular person.

  While most of us could use advice in asshole management, we cannot get far without an answer to our initial question: What is it for someone to be an asshole?4 If nothing else, a good answer—a good theory of the asshole—would be intellectually interesting. It would give us the concepts to finally think or say why some people disturb us so. That, in turn, would ideally open a window into deeper aspects of morality and social life. We would see what assholes reveal about the human social condition and why assholes are everywhere, in every society. Ideally, a good theory would be practically useful. Understanding the asshole we are stuck with might help us think constructively about how best to handle him. We might get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.

  According to our theory, which we will present shortly, the asshole exposes a deep feature of morality that philosophers have sought to understand from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to this day.5 The asshole refuses to listen to our legitimate complaints, and so he poses a challenge to the idea that we are each to be recognized as moral equals. This explains why the asshole is so bothersome, by revealing the great importance we attach to recognition in unexpected areas of our lives. In later chapters, we will suggest that a clearer understanding of this helps with asshole management. The key is to understand why we are easily tempted to fight on the asshole’s terms: we are fighting for moral recognition in his eyes. We will also explore larger, more basic questions about human social life. Why are assholes mainly men? Can assholes be properly blamed? Why do some societies produce more assholes than others? Are certain styles of capitalism especially prone to asshole production and thus social decline? And, finally, can we ultimately make peace not only with the given asshole but also with a human social condition in which assholes flourish?

  WHAT IS IT TO BE AN ASSHOLE?

  Our theory is simply this: a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people. (Because assholes are by and large men, we use the masculine pronoun “he” advisedly. We will suggest that women can be assholes as well. For the time being, think of Ann Coulter. We consider the question of gender in detail in chapter 4.) Our theory thus has three main parts. In interpersonal or cooperative relations,6 the asshole:

  (1) allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically;

  (2) does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and

  (3) is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.


  So, for example, the asshole is the person who habitually cuts in line. Or who frequently interrupts in a conversation. Or who weaves in and out of lanes in traffic. Or who persistently emphasizes another person’s faults. Or who is extremely sensitive to perceived slights while being oblivious to his crassness with others. An insensitive person—a mere “jerk”—might allow himself to so enjoy “special advantages” in such interpersonal relations. What distinguishes the asshole is the way he acts, the reasons that motivate him to act in an abusive and arrogant way. The asshole acts out of a firm sense that he is special, that the normal rules of conduct do not apply to him. He may not deliberately exploit interpersonal relations but simply remains willfully oblivious to normal expectations. Because the asshole sets himself apart from others, he feels entirely comfortable flouting accepted social conventions, almost as a way of life. Most important, he lives this way more or less out in the open. He stands unmoved when people indignantly glare or complain. He is “immunized” against anyone who speaks up, being quite confident that he has little need to respond to questions about whether the advantages he allows himself are acceptable and fair. Indeed, he will often himself feel indignant when questions about his conduct are raised. That, from his point of view, may show that he is not getting the respect he deserves.

  Although our theory is a definition of the term “asshole,” we should emphasize that it is not necessarily a dictionary definition. It is not necessarily a claim about how the word “asshole” is commonly used in some linguistic group (e.g., speakers of English). The word is often used loosely and variously, and we aren’t suggesting that every competent speaker of English would agree with our proposal about what the word means. We aren’t even saying that a majority of speakers would agree, in a way that might be confirmed or undermined by opinion polls or psychological experiments. Instead, our approach is the one Socrates proposes to Polus in Plato’s Gorgias, when he explains why the dispute between them does not depend on opinion polls (what they call “the company”). Polus asks, “But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company.” Socrates replies:

  You must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company [.…] I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof?7

  Our definition, in other words, is a constructive proposal. It tries to articulate what we ordinarily mean when we speak of “assholes” but ultimately stands or falls on whether it captures the importance assholes have for us—where the “us” is, in the first instance, you and me. I am proposing the definition in light of importance that assholes have for us. You decide whether you agree.8

  THE PUZZLE

  Before considering the details of our theory, we will first follow philosophical practice and ask what kind of theory we are looking for. We can then “test” a given theory—including the one just stated—by considering whether it explains what we are trying to explain. This gives us a modicum of control in a messy enterprise.

  We begin with a puzzle. Although some assholes take a staggering toll on the lives of others, many assholes are not bad in this way: the costs they impose upon other people may be moderate or small. Yet they are still clearly morally reprehensible. How could that be? Why would we be deeply bothered even by a person who makes little material difference to our lives?

  In other words, we might put the puzzle this way. There are at least three things we should want from a good theory of assholes, but it is not immediately obvious how all three might be true.

  The first is straightforward: we are looking for a stable trait of character, or type of person—a vice rather than a particular act, mere lapse in conduct, or brief phase of life. A single courageous or magnanimous act does not make for a courageous or magnanimous person. Nor does an occasional impatient or self-absorbed or foolish act make someone into an impatient or self-absorbed or foolish person. In the same way, someone can act like an asshole—in a particular situation or over a particular day or week—without really, ultimately, being an asshole.9 When the assholish behavior doesn’t reflect the kind of person someone generally is, stably, in his life, he is better classified as a jerk, a boor, a cad, a schmuck, or a mere ass. What we want to understand, in the first instance, is the sort of person for whom assholish acts are quite in character, and indeed routine, because they do generally reflect the type of person he stably is. In particular, our target is the average proper asshole. We first seek neither the “royal asshole,” who is distinguished even among assholes, nor the “borderline asshole,” whose status as an asshole is not entirely clear. We want to identify the mean asshole between these extremes: your normal, everyday asshole.

  This also means that we should not think first of extreme cases such as Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini. There are not enough harsh names for these figures, and it is fine to add “asshole” to the list. But it would be deeply offensive to only call Hitler or Stalin an asshole; there are much more important ways to describe them morally. At least initially, the mere asshole is a less confusing test case.

  It should be said that we do not mean to prematurely close the possibility that talk of “assholes” really isn’t about any stable trait of character at all but is merely a form of swearing or term of abuse.10 We certainly do swear at people and use this term, as when one says, “You disgust me, asshole!” Many more clearly descriptive terms (“coward” or “bully,” for example) lack the same special expressive power. But the term “asshole” can be expressive and also pick out a real feature of persons. It would not be incoherent to say of someone, without disapproval, “He is my friend, and he is fine to me personally, but I have to admit he is an asshole.” One might wonder why someone who said this stays friends with an asshole, but the statement could be quite true and known to all: the person spoken of is, in fact, an asshole.11

  The second and third things a theory of assholes should explain are related and must be handled with greater care. The second thing to explain is that most assholes are not morally beyond the pale, unlike, say, a murderer, rapist, or tyrant. Most assholes are not that bad. One post in the Urban Dictionary has it that “[an asshole is] the worst kind of person.… If you’re an asshole, you are disgusting, loathsome, vile, distasteful, wrathful, belligerent, agoraphobic, and more.… [Assholes] are the lowest of the low. They transcend all forms of immorality.”12 This is overwrought and unhelpful. We can agree that the worst kinds of people can also be assholes, but it is not helpful to think first of people at the bottom of the moral barrel—the Hitlers, Stalins, or Mussolinis—since their corruption is wildly over-determined. As suggested earlier, the mere asshole is a clearer target of inquiry and, in any case, often not among the lowest of the low. We are quite justified in removing a murderer or a rapist or a tyrant from society by force, in handcuffs and at the point of a gun; the material costs such people impose upon others are enormous and often beyond repair. But the material costs many assholes impose upon others—a longer wait in line, a snide remark, a ruined afternoon—are often by comparison moderate or very small. It would be indefensible to forcibly remove them from society. Which is of course why we are often stuck interacting with them, why they seem to be everywhere.

  And yet—and this is the third thing we need to explain—assholes are still repugnant people. Despite the fact that the material costs they impose are often moderate or small, assholes are rightly upsetting, even morally outrageous. Something else is deeply bothersome about them, something beyond mere material costs: something bad enough to drive an otherwise coolheaded person into a fit of rage;13 something that lingers in one’s memory like a foul stench; something that warrants a name we use for a part of the body we hide in public, a part of the body that many people feel a
lienated from and perhaps wish wasn’t there.14 It is this bothersome “something” that we want to expose.

  To summarize, then, our three requirements for a good theory of assholes are as follows. We are looking for (1) a stable trait of character, (2) that leads a person to impose only small or moderate material costs upon others, (3) but that nevertheless qualifies the person as morally repugnant.

  Yet how could a person who imposes only small or modest costs upon others nevertheless count as morally reprehensible? What way of being could possibly be like that? This is not exactly a paradox. It is an interesting puzzle.

  THE MORAL ASSHOLE

  Recall our theory: a person counts as an asshole just in case he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people. This theory answers our challenge by zeroing in on a particular, distinctive way of being morally reprehensible. We can bring this out by considering the way our theory is moral through and through.

  We should pause, however, to worry about overmoralizing. When the writer David Foster Wallace calls John Updike’s character Ben Turnbull an asshole (with the clear implication that Updike is an asshole as well), the main ground for this is Turnbull’s (and Updike’s) general self-absorption, not his moral faults.15 We will agree that self-absorption is crucial. We will also admit that there are more general uses of the term “asshole,” which we discuss later on. We start with the central, moral case.

  According to our theory, the asshole does what he does out of a “sense of entitlement,” a sense of what he deserves, or is due, or has a right to. However misguided, the asshole is morally motivated. He is fundamentally different from the psychopath, who either lacks or fails to engage moral concepts, and who sees people as so many objects in the world to be manipulated at will. The asshole takes himself to be justified in enjoying special advantages from cooperative relations. Given his sense of his special standing, he claims advantages that he thinks no one can reasonably deny him. He is resentful or indignant when he feels his rights are not respected, in much the same way a fully sociable, cooperative person is.